Some of our clients have found it beneficial to approach strategic change as a process guided by proven behavioral principles rather than fancy or faddish models. These principles aren’t merely pet theories of ours. Rather, they derive from research in management best practices and social psychology, and have proven valid in our practice and in the experience of other management and organizational consultants.

1. Substantive change is an emergent process that is immune, if not completely resistant, to perfect planning.
2. People’s discomfort with change is a sign of human development and not something to avoid.
3. Quick fixes and instant recipes typically last about as long as they take to cook up. Similarly, over-reliance on pet models, tools, and dogmatic systems is often a surrogate for actual change.
4. Change requires overcoming denial to some degree. Said differently, getting “better reality” is a prerequisite to change.
5. Sustainable change is an oxymoron. Periods of change are by definition punctuated by periods of relative inertia.
6. Often, excessive focus on the future (over-emphasis on goal- and objective-setting) is actually a change-avoidant strategy in disguise.
7. Viable change must address the dynamic human and operational issues involved, and not merely the economic ones. This principle conveys the #1 shortfall of most management planning.
8. Investment in the status quo has proven dicey throughout human history.
9. Paradoxically, investment in the status quo tends to be every human group and organization’s top investment.
10. No management principle is always true except this one.